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Western graduate students boil down research into three-minute pitch 0

Brian Wishart, Special to The Free Press

Wednesday, April 9, 2014
9:01:38 EDT PM

Engineering grad student Anastasia Pasche has moved onto the next round of the 3 Minute Thesis competition. She is pictured here at Western University in London on Wednesday. BRIAN WISHART The London Free Press / QMI AGENCY

No sweat for millennials, the text-crazy, Twitter-obsessed generation going through school now, the students that communicate in abbreviations and like it fast.

Right?

Think again.

A showdown Thursday at Western University — The Three-Minute Thesis — challenges graduate students to boil down an academic thesis into the briefest of talks.

It’s harder than it sounds, even for a generation that lives in bits and bytes.

“It is nerve-wracking. That’s why it’s really important to practise in front of people you aren’t as comfortable with,” said Anastasia Pasche, an engineering graduate student, who’s rehearsed her talk aloud to others a dozen times.

With her project about photovoltaics, the conversion of light into electricity, Pasche had her work to be brief cut out for her.

“If I can’t explain this to people in simple terms, then how am I supposed to explain it in complicated terms?” she said.

Seventy-five Western graduate students took the challenge, of which 21, including Pasche, are moving on to Thursday’s final round.

Western graduate Michael Taylor finished first last year with a presentation about diabetes and went to the provincial finals at Queen’s University.

“Not too often can you be in a room where you hear 32 amazing talks,” said Taylor.

Peter Simpson, a Western physics professor who’s helped mentor students for the competition, said he wishes he make all students go through the exercise.

“There’s a real art to it — skipping over the details and reducing it down to the subject area and the importance of the results,” he said.